Carlos Gutierrez: from exile to corporate leadership: CEO and president/Kellogg Company won the Chairman's Productivity Cup three years in a row while heading up the Mexico division - Top Ten Latinos

by Miriam Martinez

FACED WITH a global decline or stagnation in cereal sales, Carlos Gutierrez took the helm at Kellogg and reinvented the way that millions of busy people around the world eat breakfast, He is the only Latino CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

Not bad for a man whose family was exiled and its livelihood confiscated during the Cuban Revolution.

Born in Havana on November 4, 1953, Gutierrez was six when Fidel Castro's guerrillas triumphantly rode into the capital, trapping Gutierrez's family in Miami where they were on vacation.

With their pineapple export business confiscated by communists, and banned from going home, the family had to start again from scratch.

"My father was devastated, but it brought out the essence of his work ethic, something that affected the entire family. We pulled together in Miami and embraced the great opportunities this country offered us to start over," he says.

Pedro, the father, got a job with Heinz in Mexico and then started Lip his own business in which Carlos worked. A recession, however, drove the firm into deep water and Carlos to Mexico City.

"I was very confused and worded about my future. I had no idea what to do, until I met a friend who told me Kellogg was recruiting sales and marketing trainees. I jumped at the opportunity and was hired right away."

He began his career at Kellogg in 1975.

In posture and demeanor, Gutierrez appears simultaneously sober and warm, authoritative and approachable. His personality reveals a smooth blend of Cuban, American, and Mexican values. With his Cuban-style upbringing at home, he learned the value of working hard and showing respect for one's elders. He developed an American management style during the US-based years of his tenure at Kellogg.

Gutierrez believes that his Hispanic background helped him reach the top of Kellogg's management.

"Latinos tend to respect age and authority as a value. Understanding how different (values are) here in the US actually presented me with an opportunity to gain the confidence and trust of my superiors."

He worked for Kellogg in Canada, Mexico, the United States, and Australia.

As vice president of global business development, Carlos traveled throughout the world for two years, learning and sharing marketing ideas with his collaborators. The experience helped him become CEO in 1999.

Such ideas are reflected in the W.K. Kellogg Institute, which develops new product ideas to keep abreast of the market that does not always stay loyal to traditional breakfast foods.

In 1906 Will Keith Kellogg invented breakfast cereal and changed the way everyone ate breakfast. Today consumers have reinvented breakfast by themselves with their switch to convenience foods (ready-to-eat snacks packaged in individual servings), so Carlos has helped bring out dozens of new Kellogg products to keep pace.

He says if his success has any implication for aspiring Latinos, "It helps keep them reaching for the stars and serves as a reminder that it can be done."